The modified car includes a revised front wing similar to that introduced by Force India at Valencia, before the team’s upswing in performance.

The substantial aerodynamic revisions to the car include more deeply undercut sidepods, improvements to the double diffuser (an innovation the team were among the last to adopt) and a modified rear wing.

The car also has a brand new gearbox, which gave the same some trouble during practice today. Nick Heidfeld suffered a gearbox failure in the first session and had to have the unit replaced, and Robert Kubica had problems with a faulty gearbox sensor.

It’s too soon to tell how big an improvement the update is, but the team were encouraged to see Kubica finish the first session in fifth place and Heidfeld fourth in the second session.

This weekend boss Mario Theissen confirmed the team will use Ferrari engines in 2010. With major development work carrying on this late in the season, the signs are good that whatever becomes of BMW will remain a credible team next year.

Here are some more pictures of the updated car from a variety of angles. Will the revised F1.09 allow BMW to score points or challenge for the podium? Have your say below.

Damn but these front wings are getting fussy. Not looking to put a fluid-dynamicist’s nose outta joint, but wish they didn’t have movable wings and so many elements. It offends my desire to see a cleaner, simpler line – crikey, must be getting old *gulps*

Great to see the team pushing forward so hard on the F1.09, although given that there are still BWM €uros on tap, could be that the BMW croque of gold is empty when it comes to further dev on next years car (QB001?).

Hope the new version of the Hinwil team will be there in Bahrain next year.

It’s good to see that they’re still pushing the development of the F1.09 – they could so easily have just opted to coast for the rest of the season seeing as how they’re withdrawing. Although I’m sure Kubica would’ve mouthed off about that if they had.

Although Heidfeld is fourth in the last practice session, to me it doesn’t seem that these changes helped BMW a lot. And to be honest I really don’t understand why they’re pushing so much if they’re about to close the team…

But what struck me most from the pictures is that there were so many other places Nelson Piquet could have crashed last year. If you see the bridge or the part that goes under the grandstand, a crane can’t even reach there.

I really dunno how BMW managed to mess it up so badly. After all they were the only team last year to give up development midway. that too after they had won their first race in Canada. Something must have gone wrong terribly on the technical side. Poor pity, they are chickening out instead of fighting.

It was KERS that hurt them. I remember Theissen talking about how they focused largely on KERS and neglected the Aero a bit. Plus they didn’t see the double diffusers coming. I think that not being able to test hurt BMW a lot this year because they couldn’t figure out what exactly was wrong for a long time. Did Keith say the lefthand picture was from Monza? These wing plates are a lot more similar than I would have imagined considering the different downforce requirements of the Singapore circuit. The endplate changes are interesting as well. Much fussier, I hope it works for them.